30 Minutes
by BSG Legacy
Summary: The Cylons struck with no warning... but what if they hadn't. In a a fluke of nature, a shuttle makes it into FTL just as the Armistice station is destroyed, giving the Twelve Colonies of man thirty minutes advance warning. Thirty minutes that will change the course of human history.
1. Chapter 1

**Colonial Guided-Missile Strikestar** _ **Andrasta**_ **(SSG-104)  
Cylon attack minus thirty minutes**

"CO/ComnNet," the clipped, perfectly-enunciated tones of Petty Officer James Travis's Caprican accent rang though _Andrasta's_ cramped CIC, breaking the listless quiet that had taken hold. "Incoming flash-traffic on fleetwide."

Commander Jennifer Pendergast barely glanced up from the piles of charts spilling over the CIC plotting table. Her inky-brown eyes made only the briefest of eye-contacts—and though the haze of her graying blonde hair at that-before flitting back to the course she was trying to plot. "They know we're in the middle of an exercise?" she mused.

"Sir... it's flagged urgent," said Travis, his lips going tight as he glanced over at the printer spitting out the incoming message line-by-line.

"Probably some butter-dart whining about your cheating," came the smokey contralto of her TAO, Captain Sarah Fawkes.

"It's not cheating," said Pendergast, glancing up with a withering stare. "It's ingenuity. They expect anything less from aggressors?" She pushed her glasses up her nose, pointedly ignoring the lopsided smirk on Fawkes's face as she turned to the communications/networking officer. "Talk to me chief."

"Sir..." Travis's voice was a shaky, quiet whisper as he stared at the printout in his hands. "I-" he look up, his face a wreck of confusion and fear as he tried to coax another word out. Even Fawkes had traded her smirk for a stoney-faced worry.

"Travis?" Forgetting her charts, Pendergast made her way to the petty officer's station, the wrinkles on her brow deepening with each step. "What do you have?"

"You... should read this yourself, sir," said Travis, his hands shaking as he handed the printout over.

"Oh my gods," breathed Pendergast, her voice barely above a whisper as she read the blocky mono-space letters spelling out an impossible truth. "TAO-" she forced her voice into a commanding bark, "Sound action stations and go to RADCON condition secure. Now, people!"

For a split-second, the CIC was quiet as death, then it exploded in a fury of alert sirens and orders barked by confused, worried sailors.

"Sir, what-" Fawkes started to speak before Pendergast cut her off, slapping the printout against the younger woman's uniform blouse.

"Armistice station is gone," said the Commander, "Shuttle crew barely made it out."

"Holy frak."

Pendergast nodded. "As soon as we make condition one, start plotting an FTL jump above the ecliptic."

"Aye, sir," said Fawkes, her nose crinkling in clear confusion as she started booting the FTL navicomputer.

"By hand," said Pendergast, her hands balling into fists against the painted-steel console. "Shuttle's computers were compromised, we're not sure how. Until we do..." she glanced at the rack of dradis monitors hanging from the ceiling, "Assume all avionics are compromised."

"Sir, I've never plotted a jump by hand before," said Fawkes, her eyes not quite meeting Pendergast's as she powered down the computer.

"Grab anyone you need, just get it done," said Pendergast, already moving to the next duty-station. "And someone get my frakking XO," she snapped.

"S-sir," Fawkes dipped her head in a vague approximation of a salute. "Plot an FTL jump by hand..." she muttered to herself, pulling out a slide-rule and several inch-thick charting books from the corner of her console she'd thought she'd never visit. "How hard could it be?"

\- - -

The shrill, electronic whine of _Andrasta's_ shipwide alert klaxon jolted Colonel Mike Jackson from the paperwork-induced stupor of filling out the daily Operational Readiness Reports.

Action stations, and not just another simulated attack run. Even if he somehow missed the repeated "This is not a drill" announcement, the tension in Pendergast's voice was palpable. Something was wrong... very very wrong for her to be that tense. Paperwork forgotten, he bolted out the hatch, his boots pounding a nervous cantor against the anti-skid deck plating.

"Colonel!" A marine corporal nearly slammed into him in the hallway, "Sir, CO wants you on the CIC asap."

"No shit," Jackson waved for the man to lead the way, "What's the situation?"

"Don't know, sir," said the Marine, almost throwing himself though each pressure-tight door, "She got a message on fleet-wide... spooked her."

Jackson grimaced. Whatever happened was bad, otherwise _Andrasta_ wouldn't be sitting at condition one. And if she hadn't told the crew... that meant it was _so_ bad she didn't know how to tell them. The list of possibilities was vanishingly small, and every one of them more horrible than the last.

"XO on deck!" someone barked as Jackson stepped into the CIC. Not that anyone saluted. Every watch officer was busy with their consoles, with Commander Pendergast storming angrily from one to the other, snapping orders off where she could.

"Mike," she said, giving him an emotionless glance as she handed a crumped fleetwide printout over. "Colonies are under attack."

"Motherfrakker," Jackson glanced over the message, absorbing what precious little information it contained before glancing at the dradis tower to get his bearings, only to be met by a blank screen and a pulsing "Dradis offline" message. _Andrasta_ was in RADCON secure. No radiation emissions meant no wireless, no thrusting, and no dradis. If the message wasn't exaggerating-and he had a sinking feeling it wasn't-going dark and quiet was the safest call. He still couldn't help feeling blind.

"Colonel," Fawkes mumbled, a slide-rule in her mouth garbling her words before she hurriedly spit it out. "Uh, XO... I have a jump plotted, but I need another check of the math."

"You do it by hand?" said Jackson, spinning the scribble-covered clipboard towards himself.

"My orders," said Pendergast, fuming as she bounced from station to station, giving the blank dradis tower a frustrated look every few seconds.

Jackson couldn't fault her on that, not after reading the message. "TAO, spin up the drive, I'll take this," he said, tapping his knuckle against the clipboard.

"Aye, sir."

Pendergast gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye.

"We'll make it," said Jackson, running though Fawkes's work line-by-line. _Or we're frakked._


	2. Chapter 2

With a thundercrack that was more felt than heard, _Andrasta's_ CIC promptly snapped back into position. The lingering vertigo of an FTL jump quickly subsiding as the laws of Physics once again took their iron grasp of the strikestar.

"CO/TAO, Jump complete, sir," said Fawkes, her face cracking into an exhausted smile. She glanced over at the status board, watching each twinkling indicator light flicker from amber to green. "All stations report in, no damage."

Pendergast nodded, allowing herself a breath of relief. If _Andrasta's_ jump computers had been compromised, there wouldn't be a peice of the ship big enough to see with a microscope left. "What's our position?"

"Nav/TAO," Fawkes glanced over at the two officers sitting half-hidden in the navigation compartment, "give me a location, manual star-sightings only."

"TAO, it'll take a few minutes to get a hard lock without the computer."

Fawkes glanced at Pendergast, one brow arching up in an unvoiced question.

"Understood, Nav," said the Commander, plucking the CIC phone off its cradle and coiling the cord around the back of her hand, "Just get it done."

"Aye, sir."

"Mike," Pendergast tapped her free hand against the phone's receiver, glancing over at her XO, "I need to know what we're up against, analyze everything we've got-" she nodded towards the ComnNet station, "-and find me a defensive posture that works."

"Quietly, or...?" Jackson trailed off, his focus going hazy as he started putting peices together in some back corner of his brain.

"No, take anyone you need," said Pendergast, "How in any hell are we going to launch missiles if we can't even trust our dradis."

"You'll find a way, sir," said Jackson, offering a strained smile to Pendergast as he made his way to the Communications/networking console.

"I should hope so," said Pendergast, glancing over to the navigation compartment. "Nav! we have a positional lock yet?"

The navigation officer held up a finger, holding his headset on with the other hand. "Yes sir," he said, spinning around in his chair to face the Plexiglas map of the system between his compartment and the CIC-proper. "TAO was right on the money," he said, placing a red grease-pencil check along Helios-Beta's orbital track. "One-fifty SU above the plane."

Pendergast smiled, dipping her head at Fawkes, "Outstanding work, Captain. Should keep us safe for the time being."

"Sir?" Travis drummed his fingers in a nervous cadence against his console, "Even at RADCON secure... _Andrasta's_ not stealth."

"Don't have to be," said Jackson, "Nothing's more than a few degrees off the plane of the ecliptic. Nothing but us."

"Cylon's aren't going to pull a taskforce from the attack to go sniffing-out blackspace," said Pendergast, ignoring the tiny part of her that wanted to scream "I hope."

"Aye... Aye sir," Travis nodded. He didn't look thoroughly convinced, but at least he was focused enough to do his job.

Pendergast brought the half-forgotten CIC phone to her face. Her free-hand toggled the system to ship-wide, and the synthetic chimes of a Bosun's whistle sounded over the CIC speakers. "Attention all hands, this is the Commander."

She took a breath, giving her crew time to pause what they were doing and listen-and herself a chance to gather her words. "Our colonies are under attack. I wish I could tell you more, but we are _far_ out in the black, operating only on what rumors and reports make it to us. I wish I could tell you the attack was repulsed, but initial reports are of an overwhelming Cylon assault."

Pendergast paused, her brow knitting as she gathered her next words. Her crew was in shock, she could feel the terrified gaze of all two-hundred-ninety-seven crewmen boring into her temples. "But I can promise you that we shall not fade into the black." She stood a little straighter, affecting a confidence she didn't quite feel, " _Andrasta_ is a strikestar of the colonial fleet, one of the finest. And when the time comes, we shall strike back from the dark in defense of our homes. Until then... stand to your stations, and brace for engagement. Pendergast out."

\- - -  
A/N: Helios-Beta is one of the four stars in the massive compound star-system that the 12 colonies exist in. There's a map(that I linked below),but I'm not sure of the canonical status of said map. There's nothing better floating around though, so I'm going to treat it as gospel.

.


	3. Chapter 3

Colonial Battlestar _Atlantia_ (BSG-61)

 _Atlantia_ was a cantankerous beast at the best of times. Only the second _Mercury_ class ship off the line, she was plagued with the myriad of problems that infested the flight-one _Mercury_ configuration. Her networks needed constant reboots, her heat-exchangers were chronically leaky, and without a proper command-slaving system, getting vipers down on her inverted lower-landing decks was dicey at the best of times. Rear Admiral David Nagala had been counting the hours until the end of _Atlantia's_ combat cruise, when she could finally pull in for a much-needed retrofit.

Or he had been, until forty-five minutes ago. Now it looked like her stubborn ass had saved his.

"CO/ComnNet, fleet headquarters again requests we dock for personnel transfer," said his communications officer. She bit her lip, her pudgy cheeks puffing out as she listened to the wireless tirade. "Sir… they're getting very insistent."

"Tell them to go to hell," growled Nagala, giving her only the briefest of glances before his eyes fixated back on the pulsing dradis displays. "We can't fight if we're not in the air."

"Aye… sir. I'll tell them."

"XO," Nagala didn't move his eyes from the dradis tower, "What's the status of the rest of the fleet?"

" _Valkyrie_ flight-minus four hours, _Mjolnir_ 's in the air, but she's got negative fire-control." The XO, shook her head, "Smashed her primary dradis array getting out of dry-dock."

"Shit." Nagala scowled. Thirty minutes warning was barely enough time to get a battlestar to full action-stations. Much less recall a crew from leave, spin up the engines, and re-wire the computer systems almost from scratch. "TAO, dradis?"

"Nothing yet, sir."

"CO," The comms Chief offered an apologetic wince, "Fleet HQ-"

"Enough of this," Nagala ripped a CIC phone off its cradle, "Patch me in."

"Sir."

"Fleet Headquarters, this is _Atlantia_ -Actual. We are the only weapons-system you have, and I am keeping her in the air until we are relieved. Court-martial me if I'm wrong, but don't-"

"CO/TAO, multiple dradis contacts, no IFF."

Nagala scowled, dropping the phone back into its cradle with barely a thought. "XO, Authenticate those contacts, Cylons frak with our computers, I'm not shooting at friendlies-"

"Aye, sir."

"-TAO, set secondary batteries to enemy suppression fire mode one. Have the gun-captains lock in a firing solution, weapons-tight until my release."

"Aye, sir. Mode one, weapons-tight."

"-Helm, bring us into a minimal-aspect firing position. Keep the sun to our tail, see if we can muck up their dradis a little."

"CO/Helm," the helmsman gave Nagala a apologetic look,"without the network connection to fire-control I can't plot that course."

"Shit," Nagala scowled. As good an idea as severing the networks might have been, it left his ship almost crippled. "COB-"

"On it sir," the Chief of the Boat almost vaulted from her station to the helmsman's, her head bobbing back and forth between the vehicle-dynamics and dradis displays. "Helm, down ten degrees, right five."

Nagala didn't bother listening to the rest of the course, he had a million more pressing matters to combat. "XO! what's the story on those contacts?" he barked. If dradis was to be trusted… they'd be in firing range in less than a minute.

"They're not colonial. No exact match, but I'd say three, possibly four basestars. No fighers yet."

"You willing to bet your life?"

"Aye, sir."

"TAO, designate new contacts as hostile, relay that data though the rest of the fleet," barked Nagala. On the off-chance another ship got in the air… he could certainly use the extra firepower. "Time to intercept?"

"Twenty seconds to max-effective range," said the TAO, her head buried in her console, "Another… minute-ten after that before optimum range. Doesn't look like they're in any hurry."

"CO/ComNet, incoming wireless databurst." the Comms Chief squinted in confusion, "It… looks like a CNP nav-plot update."

"That's how they're doing it," breathed Nagala. It didn't make any sense… Hell, it was flat-out impossible, but it explained everything. Colonial systems were uncrackable… unless someone left a backdoor. "XO, any affect on our systems?"

"No sir, but _Mjolnir's_ listing starboard… looks like she's presenting a maximum-aspect target."

"CO/CommNet, _Mjolnir_ reports she's lost helm authority… other systems are unaffected."

So that's how they did it. Nagala glanced at the dradis tower, "TAO, all batteries weapons free, execute. COB, bring us around to shield _Mjolnir._ "

"Aye sir, Weapons-free."

The order was barely past her lips when _Atlantia_ bucked from the shock of her main batteries open up in near-perfect harmony. The thunder of her main guns was soon joined by the low rumble of her secondary weapons throwing up a protective blanket of flak and shrapnel.

"Multiple hits…" the TAO glanced from the dradis tower to her station, her nose crinkling into a grimace as each gun-captain relayed their observations. "Negative detonations."

"Over-pen?"

"That'd be my guess."

"Load high-ex and reacquire."

"Sir," the TAO tilted her head, listening for a second to the gun-captains' reports. "We don't have any idea what we're shooting for. It's a roll of the dice if we hit anything vital."

"Understood, just keep shooting."

"Aye, sir- Sir! Radiological alarm!"

"COB, turn us into the missiles," barked Nagala. If the _Mercury_ had a defining strong point, it was her massively over-built bow. "Brace for impact."

Nagala swore he could feel _Atlantia_ gritting herself for the blow a second before it struck. The whole hull rang as the impact of the blast worked its way though layers of spaced-armor and geodesic hull-framing.

"Damage report, now."

"Direct hit upper-forward plate," called the TAO, her voice an emotionless drone as she read off the DC board, "Decompression forward of frame nineteen… we've lost alpha turret."

"COB, bring us around," said Nagala, hoping to keep his weak-side out of the line of fire.

"CO/CommNet, _Valkarie_ reports possible FTL ability in ten minutes."

"What about _Mijolnir_?"

"She's attempting a system-wide reboot."

"Tell her to focus on FTL systems only," said Nagala, "Tell the fleet to jump to rally-point Deacon, we'll cover the retreat."

"Sir!" the XO shot him an astonished glance, "We can't just give up."

"If we stay we die for nothing," Nagala balled his hands into fists. "TAO-" _Atlantia_ buckled under him as another wave of missiles slammed into her flank, sending the ship rolling around her long axis.

"Sir, fires in the starboard flight pod and engine bays. DC teams dispached."

Nagala cursed under his breath, "TAO, plot a jump, I want us going the second the fleet is clear."

"Aye sir. Sir, new radiological contacts… Nukes heading for fleet HQ."

"COB, can we intercept?"

"Not with our right-side engines down."

Nagala was helpless to watch the missiles race across the dradis board, disappearing in an innocent-looking flash as they slammed into the headquarters station.

"CO/CommNet, _Mijolnir_ is away!"

Nagala felt relief wash over him in spite of himself. So much death, but one ship saved… one ship at least would carry the flag. _"Valkarie?_ "

"Three minute sir!"

"All Batteries, weapons-free, ripple fire. Find something and shoot it. COB, evasive maneuvers, pull out every trick in the book."

"Aye, sir. You're gonna want to brace for this."

Nagala nodded, feeling the deck lurch under him as _Atlantia_ threw herself into a violent turn, deftly rolling around a wave of Cylon missiles to absorb them against her armored spine.

"CO, _Valkarie_ is away!"

"Jump!"


	4. Chapter 4

StrikeStar _Andrasta_ (SSG-104)

Commander Pendergast read over the rather… colorful report of Admiral Nagala's fighting retreat, her nose crinkling up in a display somewhere between disgust at the attack and bemusement at the Admiral's… unorthodox style. She'd had the pleasure of serving with him once, and the Admiral's vaunted stubbornness did not disappoint. Now it was looking like it saved his life.

More than that, it bought the fleet a valuable shred of information, and stripped the Cylons of what she hoped was their best weapon. "TAO, you read this, right?"

"Sir," Fawkes nodded, her smokey voice strained and tight.

"A backdoor in the CNP,is that even-" Pendergast sighed, setting the printout back on the Communication console, "-Remotely possible?"

"I would say no," Fawkes shook her head, her hair a messy mass of friz that almost glowed in the CIC spotlighting, "But it jives with the reports we're getting. One quick transmission… then everything's out like someone just flipped a switch."

Pendergast nodded, thinking for a minute how she should approach this. _Andrasta_ depended on her networking to stay combat-effective. "Assume it's localized to the FCS, how long to cut the networks and do a clean reinstall."

"Everything?" asked Fawkes, her eyes going hazy as she mentally retreated into some darkened corner of her brain where records of ungodly precision were kept.

"Don't worry about Flight control. If there's malware hiding in the code it'll be in the backup drives too."

Fawke nodded, her brain almost visibly ticking over as she recalculated. "Eight hours? Maybe seven if we push it."

"Don't let me keep you," said Pendergast, "XO, I want dradis back up as soon as she cuts the net. And stand down to RADCON-tight, we might be lame, but I don't want us blind."

"Aye, sir."

"And stand down to Condition 2," Pendergast rubbed at her temples. It was hard to believe this all started barely over an hour ago. Damn she was tired… her crew was tired, stressed, and wound tighter than anyone manning a gun should be. And she was not going down as the Commander who lost her boat when some twitchy NCO flipped a switch he shouldn't have.

"Should we deploy a CAP?" asked Colonel Jackson, one overgrown bush of an eyebrow creeping up on his forehead as he glanced over, end of the CIC phone tapping against his jaw.

"No, our birds are running the same CNP as _Andrasta_ ," said Pendergast, "We send them-" She stopped short. It was one thing to voice her concerned about her precious aviation assets turning into flying death-traps to her XO. It was entirely another to do so while _her entire CIC was listening._ "XO, you have the deck, I have to talk to the CAG."

* * *

Captain Karen "Kit" Logan paced back and forth in the frustratingly cramped confines of _Andrasta's_ aviation briefing room. Even with her tiny five-foot-two frame, the confinement was maddening. _Andrasta_ was a cruiser first and a carrier… eleventy-third. It wasn't that the ship was poorly laid out… she was just so damn tiny! And with half a dozen Raptors, their crews, and their underwing stowage-farms, there was barely any room left for her four vipers!

And spending the past hour with nothing to do beyond stare at the clock and scowl wasn't doing anything to ease her temper.

"CAG," the Commander was standing in the rear hatch, her rumpled-looking figure towering over the diminutive pilot. She hadn't even heard her come in she was so wired.

"Sir," Kit snapped to attention, holding her head as high as she could manage.

"Where's your pilots?" asked Pendergast, glancing around the deserted briefing room.

"Raptor ECOs got drafted by your TAO," said Kit, her hands hanging loosely around her belt, "No point in getting a 'hog in the air without an ECO, so I gave the drivers some rack time."

"Vipers?"

"Same, if they're punching though a Raptor's anti-intrusion-"

"They're not," said Pendergast, "there's a backdoor in the CNP."

Kit gave her a sideways look, her olive skin going a hair redder. "Frak me."

"What's the situation with our birds?" Pendergast rested her hands on her hips, giving the wound-up CAG a productive direction to vent her pent-up energy.

"Raptor's'll be fine," said Kit, letting out a hissing breath as she thought, "The command-slaving-rig was a bodge-job at best. Shouldn't be hard to remove." After all the bitching from her hog drivers about ancient airframes getting yet _another_ unwanted extension while HQ dragged their feet about fielding a replacement, this has to frakking happen.

"Time?"

"Maybe an hour each?" said Kit, "The CNP system's in a whole 'nother avionics bay, we can just pull it and leave the wires dangling if you want it done faster."

"No, those birds are my eyes… let's do it right." Pendergast glanced at the status board on the side wall. "And spot a pair as soon as you're done. Best pilots you got, I want eyes up.

Kit nodded, already scanning though her list of pilots. Spots and Dozer were probably her best, but they'd spent six hours in the air before the shit hit the fan. They earned their rack time.

"What about our Vipers?"

"Vipers? Vipers are frakked," Kit shook her head. "Mark Sevens were build around integrated computers. Quarantining the CNP means no stability-assist. No way nuggets can handle it. Hell, I'm not even sure _I_ can handle it."

"Frak," Pendergast scowled. Kit could tell she wasn't surprised at the answer, but she had probably been hoping her comparatively limited knowledge of the newer Vipers had betrayed her.

"Sorry, sir, if we launch we're not going to hit anything. And if we try to land…" Kit pursed her lips, her cheeks inflating in resignation, "You've seen how some of these guys land _with_ assist."

Pendergast nodded, "Understood. Keep working the problem, though."

"Yes, sir." Kit paused for a second, waiting for her CO to offer another order. When none came, she added, "Sir…I heard Admiral Nagala's taken over the fleet. We have any new orders?"

"Not as such," said Pendergast, pulling idly at the buttons of her uniform, "Can't exactly go singling out ships, but we've got new standing orders to peruse the fight in whatever manner we see fit."

"Sir… that doesn't really sound like-"

"His exact words were, 'find something and kill it'."

"Ah." Kit nodded, a weary smile spreading across her face. That sounded like the Admiral she knew.

 **A/N: Well, that took much longer than I thought it would. First I got wrapped up in another fic I just couldn't put down. (Kan-Colle-Quest over on SpaceBattles) then I got roped into running a game of Starwars D6 for a bunch of friends... anyway, enough with the excuses, read! Enjoy! That's an order, nugget.**


	5. Chapter 5

Jennifer Pendergast cradled her steaming mug close to her breast, sneaking a sip or two of the sooty black coffee every few minutes. A civilian would have found the brew utterly disgusting: boiled flat and sitting like an evil stain in a mug that had long since been stained a muddy black. There's a tradition among officers of the colonial fleet: once you join the service, you never wash your mug out.

As disgusting as her "seasoned" coffee was, it was at least a constant. No matter how thoroughly frakked her boat, morning coffee always tasted the same. And this morning, she was more thankful for that comforting sameness than ever.

Overnight, engineering crews had torn her CIC apart. Jump cables ran like meandering blaze-orange snakes from console to console, bypassing parts of the network that couldn't be trusted, and linking those that could—or had to—be trusted into one huge ad-hoc mess.

"Excuse me, Chief," she said, gingerly stepping over the bottom half of a coveralls-clad engineer laying waist-deep inside a console. All she received in reply was a suspiciously muted grunt.

"Morning, sir," said Fawkes, shifting her weight from one hip to the other as she tried to man her console without stepping on the tech working under it.

"We have an ETA?" asked Pendergast, resting her mug on the console as she leaned over.

The engineer grunted something as she fumbled for one of the patch cables resting on her stomach.

"CO, Engineering reports ninety minutes," said Fawkes, barely missing a beat as she fidgeted again.

"Fair enough." Pendergast nodded, turning back to the dradis tower. The operational dradis tower, something she'd never quite appreciated until now. "Raptors pick anything up in the night?"

"No sir," said Fawkes, handing a clipboard to the CO, "Not even much comms chatter… looks like everyone's running signals tight."

Pendergast nodded, "Probably for the best, let's-" a blip showed up on dradis, a contact at the very edge of her range.

"New dradis contact!" barked Fawkes, her fingers flying over her board.

"I see it, they squawking IFF?"

"N-no sir," Fawkes flashed her teeth, "Profile matches a Cy-"

"RADCON secure, now!" snapped Pendergast, her full attention snapping to the dradis console, "Recall our birds, signal-lights only. And take us to Action stations"

"Sir," Travis nodded, his headset glinting in the CIC spotlighting as he relayed the instructions to _Andrasta's_ lookouts.

"TAO, did they make us?"

Fawkes stared at her console, brows knitting for a second. "They know we're here… just not where exactly," she said confusion giving way to decisive finality as she processed the information her boards displayed her, "They're banging away with dradis like they're hunting for something."

"Please tell me I have phased-array up."

Fawkes shook her head. "No, sir." she bit her lip, glancing over her board for a second. "Secondary arrays are online, but-"

"But if we paint a target with those, we might as well kick a firework our our ass," said Pendergast. Maybe, _maybe_ if she had the sun to her tail she could loose her signal long enough to get a few missiles off. But she did't _have_ a sun to her tail. Or anything, just cold, empty space.

"Sir," Fawkes blinked back a speck of dust from her eyes. "What's the plan here?"

Pendergast tapped a finger against her belt, watching the glimmering specs of her Raptors edge their way closer to _Andrasta's_ waiting decks. "TAO… if I give you thirty seconds on active, can you guarantee me a kill?"

Fawkes nodded. "New fuse setting should work, but-"

"But we'd be open to return fire, I know. How many?"

"Four, minimum," said Fawkes, "Eight would be better."

Pendergast smiled. "Spot eight SKs. The second they power down dradis, paint the target and launch."

"Why would they-"

"Because you're also spotting two sticks of AEMs."

"Sir," Fawkes keyed the firing sequence into her board, a smile spreading over her face she didn't even bother to suppress, "Missiles ready, firing sequence locked in."

"Execute."

Two of _Andrasta's_ VLS tubes slammed open, each kicking a stick of four sub-caliber Anti-Radiation missiles into space with a burst of Co2 gas. The missiles barely cleared the tube when their own rocket motors lit, tiny thrusters in their noses kicking them over towards the last recorded bearing of the Cylon basestar.

As the Cylon warship—and it's thunderingly bright dradis transmissions—came into the seekers' view, the missiles punched forward even faster, their engines throttling open to max-thrust.

"CO/TAO, weapons are clear and tracking," said Fawkes, tracking the progress of the missile swarm from her board. "Target is launching countermeasures."

Against a semi-actively guided missile, the chaff and jamming signals the basestar was so furiously dispensing might have worked. But all the AEMs saw was an even brighter, juicier target.

"Missiles are still on track… Cylon has gone dark!"

The AEM pack lost the sent, seekers slewing wildly as they tried to re-acquire as they rocketed towards the last known coordinates of their target. Their job was over now, time for the heavy-hitters to take the field.

Eight more of _Andrasta's_ tubes rippled open, each kicking a single SK shipkiller missile into the void, each weighing more than the entire AEM pack. The second they cleared their tubes, the missiles lit their first-stage engines, yawing into a turn so violent they missed _Andrasta's_ hull by mere feet. As the basestar—almost glowing from all the illumination arrays pointed square at its bone-white hull—came into view, each missile chirped back a verification code.

"SKs have acquired the target," said Fawkes, tapping a cadence against her console as she willed the missiles on.

She needn't have bothered. Even as the first-stage was burning out, the second exploded into action, hurling the missiles ever faster at their target.

With their dradis down, the Cylons didn't even see the missiles until they were right on top of them. One of the robot warship's arms erupted blossom of point-defense missiles, but it was too little too late. What few were even able to get on target were sent rocketing into space as the SKs popped their own countermeasures.

As a last-ditch attempt, the Cylons popped every ECM and chaff pod they had. Not that it mattered. The missiles were in terminal-guidance mode. Nothing would distract them from their target.

"Confirmed hit!" Fawkes almost lept out of her chair. Missile after missile slammed into the Cylon warship, punching though what little armor they faced and gutting the ship from the inside. By the time the sixth missile found its mark, there wasn't even enough ship left to trigger the fuse. "Scratch my last, confirmed kill!"

Pendergast pumped her fist in the air, a vicious smile slashing across her face, "TAO, full dradis sweep of the sector, make we didn't miss any stragglers."

"Aye, sir!" said Fawkes, a victorious swagger in her salute.

Pendergast couldn't have reprimanded her if she tried. Instead, she plucked the CIC phone from its cradle, wrapping the cord around her hand as she switched to the ship-wide net. "Attention all hands," she glanced around her CIC, each crewman looking up at her, "We have just engaged a Cylon basestar…" she pursed her lips, steadying herself in front of her crew. "And we made the bastards bleed. That is all."

 **A/N: Woo! big round-number milestone! Though this is the first time testing out the "Intercutting space-action with CIC-action" style, let me now if I pulled it off! Oh, and someone asked about the Grand Old Lady... rest assured, Galactica will show herself when she's good and ready. She's just a bit old, you got to give her her time!**


	6. Chapter 6

"Morning, XO." Pendergast stifled a grin as Colonel Jackson shuffled into the CIC, cradling what was probably his second or third cup of coffee like it was his only son. For all his many talents, her XO was most emphatically not a morning person. Only the recent Cylon had gotten him out of his rack before 1200 ship-time.

Exactly how he managed this on a ship surrounded by nothing but empty space had always eluded her. But, always having at least one of them awake and alert was a definite plus, so she hadn't bothered digging too deeply into the matter. "Missed a hell of a fight."

"I'll wait for the report," grunted Jackson, settling himself into a chair at the aft end of the plotting table. "Raptors pulling BDA?" He added, jerking his chin at the cluster of icons shuffling around the dradis displays.

"Mmm," Pendergast nodded, closing her logbook for the moment. "This class is…" She waved a hand in the general direction of the Cylon wreck, "it's not quite like anything we've faced before."

"Anything from the rest of the fleet?"

"TAO's been updating the plot," Pendergast stood, tapping a knuckle against the plate-glass map and its many hasty grease pencil marks. "And we're expecting updated orders from Nagala-"

"CO, CommNet, incoming message on fleetwide."

Jackson arched his brow.

"-speak of the devil," said Pendergast with a tired smile.

Travis's jaw slackened, his eyes darting back and forth as a printer spit out the message line-by-line. "Sir, he's requesting all ships not currently engaged in combat to rendezvous at position point… Cathedral."

"Cathedral?" Fawkes wrinkled her nose, "No coordinates? That's not-" she ducked under her desk, pulling out a pair of coil-bound navigational reference books. "-That's not in any of our books, I don't think." she said, leafing though one just to be sure.

"It won't be," said Jackson.

"Sir? then-"

"I know where it is," Pendergast stepped over a bundle of patch-cables on her way to Fawkes's duty station. "After the last war, FleetComm drew up a list of contingency regrouping positions. Only ship command staff were informed." She bit the corner of her lip as she scanned over the system map. "Cathedral should put us right about… here." She tapped her finger near the gas giant Zeus. "Think you can drop us behind the planet's shadow?"

Fawkes tapped a knuckle against her console. "I think so, Sir. Give me fifteen minutes."

"Good, get me a jump plotted. XO, recall our birds, and secure for FTL."

Zeus was a tumultuous planet at the best of times. Thick bands of rolling thunderclouds crossed the enormous gas-giant's circumference, and most of the darkside was aglow with the shimmering aurora of lightning storms.

But now, in the awkward no-mans-land between summer and winter, the planet raged. Clouds heated by the solar proximity crashed into those still lumbering towards their summer warmth, stirring up storms that could swallow whole Action Groups without a trace.

The tempest planet greeted _Andrasta_ as she flashed into existence a scant few hundred kilometres above the nominal "edge" of the planet's atmosphere.

"Jump complete," said Fawkes, tapping her boot against the pedestal of her chair as she watched the navigation crew check their star-sightings. Finally, a thumbs-up as someone jogged over with a clipboard. "Right on target," she added, scanning over the updated navigational fix as she fed it into the computer.

"Anything on dradis?" asked Pendergast, only half paying-attention to the dradis tower.

"Nothing skywards of us," said Fawkes, her nose crinkling at the utter mess of dradis clutter filling up a hemisphere of her screen. "If there's anything between us and that planet… I'm loosing their returns in the noise."

"If there were Cylons," grunted Jackson, "we'd be dead by now."

"Always positive, XO," said Pendergast.

"That is a positive, we're still in the fight."

Pendergast cracked a half-smile as she read over the latest batch of comms intercepts.

"CO/CommNet, incoming message from _Atlantia_ -actual."

"They send the right authentication sign/counter-sign pair?"

"That's afirm, sir."

"Alright, send ours," said Pendergast, plucking the CIC phone from its cradle, "TAO, check their IFF, just to be safe-"

"Aye, sir."

"- _Atlantia_ -Actual, this is _Andrasta_ -Actual."

 _"A guided-missile ship?"_ the ferocious bombast of Admiral Nagala's voice was palpable even though the tinny ship-to-ship signal, " _Damn good to have you, I didn't think any strikestars made it._ "

"Almost didn't sir," said Pendergast, glancing ever so often at the dradis tower, "But she's a good boat with a good crew."

 _"Outstanding, I could use both,_ _Andrasta_." The admiral's voice almost dropped out as he barked something inaudible to his crew, _"I'm sending a Raptor to guide you into the storm to meet-up with the rest of the fleet."_

"I'll make sure we don't shoot him down," said Pendergast, nodding at her TAO.

 _"That would be appreciated,"_ rumbled the Admiral, _"Is your boat combat-effective?"_

"Yes sir." Pendergast didn't hesitate a second with her response, "I'd… like a few hours to reload some of our cells, but we're fit to fight."

 _"Issue what orders you need, Commander. I want you and your staff on the flagship as soon as you're safe in the storm. We've a war to plan."_


	7. Chapter 7

"You sure you remember how to land one of these?" Commander Pendergast ducked towards the Raptor's forward compartment, her eyes narrowing against the glittering sheet-lighting on the planet below.

"Relax, skipper," said Kit. With her pressure suit on, Pendergast couldn't see the woman's face. Not that she needed to, she could _hear_ the easy-going smirk in her CAG's voice. "Ever since you grounded the Vipers, I've been doing nothing but sitting on my ass."

Pendergast tilted her head, one eyebrow creeping silently up her face.

"Basically the same thing as Raptor quals," said the Viper pilot. Pausing just long enough to be noticed before tacking on a "sir" to the end of her sentence.

"Jigger know you say that?" asked Fawkes, her head not moving from the file her nose was buried in.

"Who the hell do you think I got it from?" said Kit, her off-hand coming up to toggle a few switches on the Raptor's overhead console. " _Atlantia_ , this is _Andrasta_ Raptor-one-zero-two, request landing clearance."

" _Copy, One-two-zero, you are cleared for approach, port-side upper. Speed one-seven-five, hands on approach. Call the ball."_

"Copy, _Atlantia_ , I have the ball."

Pendergast let the pilot's voice fade into some half-attended corner of her mind as the Raptor spun around its axis. She was never a pilot. As much as she valued a good aviation wing, planes never held her attention as well as ships. And what a ship _Atlantia_ was.

Lit from below by the seething storms of sheet-lighting, the hulking _Mercury_ class battlestar looked like something out of a fever dream as she came into view though the Raptor's bubbled canopy. Four hanger decks that could almost swallow _Andrasta_ whole.

There were other ships too, two _Valkyrie_ class battlestars hung off almost at the horizon, and Dradis had picked up at least three other supportstars hiding in the soupy interference. None of them held the Commander's attention, though.

As far as anyone knew, _Atlantia_ was the last big-gun capital ship left in the system. Or anywhere, for that matter. And Pendergast could almost see the rage coiled up in her bulkheads.

"Down and locked," grunted Kit, a loud _ka-thunk_ of maglocs engaging snapping Pendergast out of her musing. "Don't blame you, sir," she said, a knowing smirk on her face as she pulled off her helmet.

Pendergast returned the smile, tugging her uniform smooth as the unsteady gravity of _Mercury's_ hanger-deck fought against the much smoother Raptor systems. "Here we go," she muttered to herself, nodding to Fawkes.

Her TAO threw the hatch crank open, letting hot, stick air into the little spaceship's cabin.

Pendergast held her hands behind her back as Fawkes jumped out of the bird, her boots skidding along the wing until she landed on the hanger deck. "Commander Jennifer Pendergast, Strikestar _Andrasta_ arriving!" she snapped off.

Pendergast ducked though the hatch, shuffling down the Raptor's wing with as much grace as the squat little spaceframe would allow, bringing her hand up in crisp salute to Admiral Nagala.

"Welcome aboard _Atlantia_ ," said the Admiral, his voice booming off every bulkhead in the hanger deck. Even the multitude of exhausted dockworkers did very little to dampen it. "It's good to have you with us," he said as he returned her salute.

Pendergast's hand barely kissed her thigh before the Admiral turned on his heel, storming up the hanger ladder like a man on a mission.

"What's the condition of your planes?"

Pendergast took a second to formulate a response, "All flightworthy, but with the latest software. I've grounded all my vipers."

"Damn."

"Sir, Captain Fawkes, _Andrasta_ TAO," Fawkes half-jogged to keep up,"it's my understanding that your planes were due for a refit, if we could disseminate-"

"We can't," grunted the Admiral, his face scrunching up in a snarl. "We were scheduled to get the CNP upgrade next month, but I called in a few favors, jumped my wing to the top of the stack," he waved in the general direction of the flight pod, "Top of the line, every gods-damn one."

"Damn!"

"We picked up the viper-tender _Camelot_ just before you showed up, she's got a squadron of the old Mark-fives, and we're trying to backdate as many dash-sevens as we can, but…" the Admiral let out a frustrated sigh, "we upgraded for a reason. Those things are hard as hell to fly."

Pendergast scowled as she did the math herself. A single squadron would leave a battlestar woefully under-protected, let alone splitting it three ways.

"Sirs," Kit squished herself against the wall as a haggard-looking chief shuffle-jogged past. "If I may, I'd like to get with your CAG, maybe together we can find something."

"Do it," said Pendergast and Nagala, almost in harmony.

Kit muttered something that might have been acknowledgement, but it was lost in the sound of footfalls as she bolted for the aviation ready rooms.

"What about _Andrasta_?" said Nagala.

" _Andrasta's_ combat effective, sir. I left my XO aboard to supervise reloading our missile cells."

"Time?" Grunted Nagala with equal measure of question and command.

"One hour, maybe less," said Pendergast, her chest puffing out just a bit in pride. _Andrasta_ might be a little boat, but her crews had made a new record three days before the attack hit. "I had a team suited up as soon as we moved into the cloud."

"That the best you can do?" The Admiral's voice was more hopeful than demanding.

"That's the best we can do, sir."

Nagala let out a grunt of acceptance as he cranked open the door to _Atlantia's_ situation room. "Fuel?"

"We're sitting at fifty-percent, sir," said Fawkes, setting down her folder of systems-reports on the backlit map table.

"Sir… what's the play here?"

The Admiral paused for a moment, resting his knuckles against the map table as his gaze drifted to one of the wooden models sitting piled in one corner. "The situation's bad, Commander. Based off the ordinance they're flinging… the Cylons were hoping to wipe us out. Burn our planets to ash."

Fawkes glanced between the two officers, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. "Sirs… I'm not aware of any planetary bombardments."

"Because they're too busy shooting at us," said Nagala. "As long they're worried about a counter-attack, they can't break their defensive formation to get into position for surface-attack."

"With… three ships?" said Pendergast, a glow of admiration in her voice, "How the hell are you pulling that off?"

"Barely. We've gotten support from whatever small craft are left in the system, and we've been jumping like mad to keep them on their toes." The Admiral scowled, running his hands accros his tired face. "We're burning though fuel, our crews are running ragged, and I can't spare a single battlestar."

Pendergast nodded once, her face solemn. Then she nodded again, a tiny glint of hope in her eye, "That's where we come in, isn't it? _Andrasta's_ a strikestar, she's not built for a stand-up fight."

"Putting her on the defensive line wouldn't make a frak's worth of difference," agreed the Admiral, "But send her out hunting for something to turn the tables…"

"Wait, sirs…" Fawkes glanced between the two, "Are you actually saying… _Andrasta's_ … useless enough to deploy?"

Pendergast smirked, and even Nagala's face cracked with a hit of honest pleasure. "I wouldn't have put it so bluntly," he said, "But yes. I have a very special mission in mind for you."

 **A/N:Woooo, I'm back! Family vacation is a lot of fun, but is NOT the greatest thing for writing. But I pulled though for you. Because I am a good author and I love my fans! (Not that ya'll make it that hard to love, but still...) Enjoy!**


End file.
